


As I have given you my hand to hold

by Chibiness87



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Episode Related, Episode: s09e19-20 The Truth, F/M, Post-Episode: s09e19-20 The Truth, but hopeful, kinda angsty, on the run fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-23
Updated: 2018-05-23
Packaged: 2019-05-13 02:11:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14740101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chibiness87/pseuds/Chibiness87
Summary: As I have given you my hand to hold, so I have given you my life to keepTiming is everything.





	As I have given you my hand to hold

**As I have given you my hand to hold, so I have given you my life to keep** , by **chibiness87**  
**Rating: M**  
**Season/Spoilers** : Post The Truth  
**Disclaimer** : not mine

 **Summary** : timing is everything.

* * *

5 seconds in, she reaches for his hand.

Something concrete, something tangible, something that says he is actually here with her, that they are together.

Something that says she hasn’t lost him, after losing everything else.

Because as much as losing William hurts, as much as she knows it’s for the best, without Mulder, she knows she would never get past this.

The agony of giving up her, _their,_ son for a better life, one where he’ll be safe, where he’ll be able to be a normal boy with a normal family and a normal life is ever so slightly more than the pain of the thought of losing Mulder, but only just.

William was a miracle. William was _their_ miracle. A child born out of love, when science failed. But Mulder? Mulder is her world. She’s already buried him once, watched his supposed dead body be laid to rest, and she knows she will never be strong enough to do that again.

He shoots her a glance across the console, and threads their fingers together.

* * *

5 minutes in, she looks forwards.

Up until now, from the moment they jumped in the car, she has been looking behind them, searching for the cars that she fears will be following, sirens and lights blaring.

But there is nothing. Nothing but the sight of empty roads, and the occasional streetlight. Nothing out of the ordinary that tells of the way her heart still feels like it is lodged in her throat. Nothing that tells of the stunt they have just pulled.

Out of the corner of her eye she sees him checking the rear-view mirror again, his own tension palpable between them, and in the way his grip on her hand remains constant. She forces herself to take a deep breath, leaning her head back against the rest behind her.

“I think we made it,” he says, and the sound of his voice in the quiet makes the tears she was desperately holding back break free.

She squeezes his hand, nodding.

* * *

5 hours in, they stop for gas.

They find a quite station, not wanting to stand out as being the only customers, but unwilling to risk them being spotted and reported following the APB that must have been deployed by now.

By mutual agreement without a word being spoken, Scully is the one to risk actually leaving the car, filling the tank and heading in to the shop to pay for the gas, Mulder slipping into the passenger seat.

As much as they are running on adrenaline right now, they both know they can’t afford the risk of them falling asleep at the wheel. Of the two of them, she at least got to spend the previous few days not in a jail cell; it is only fair that she takes on some of the driving.

Not that she really knows their destination, nothing more than a State, but it’ll take a few days to drive there, and she can at least help shoulder the burden now.

Even if she still doesn’t quite know what they’re hoping to find at the end of the road. But she trusts Mulder. She slips into the driver’s seat, and as soon as they’re back on the highway his hand is reaching for hers.

They keep heading south.

* * *

5 days in, they stop at a motel.

Crummy and seedy, and exactly like every other two-bit motel they have spent the night in across the country, all on the taxpayers’ dime. This is not on the taxpayers’ dime, however. This isn’t even on hers.

This is money he has had the foresight to squirrel away over the past months, years, ever since she was taken that first time.

Ever since she became a pawn in the game of cat and mouse he has been tangled up in.

In the past she would have called him paranoid, had done so on more than one occasion in fact, but now, in this moment, curled up on the sagging mattress cocooned in his arms, hands joined on the bed between them, all she can feel is relief.

Her own small nest egg would have sufficed for a short while, but it is nothing compared to the level of funds they currently have at their disposal, hidden away in accounts with names that do not appear on either of their birth certificates. The hunt for the truth goes on, and so she leaves the memory of Dana Katherine Scully in the bedsheets.

Sometimes, they really are out to get you.

* * *

5 weeks in, they make love.

This is not to say they haven’t had sex since they left that jail. Because they have. Motel wall sex, stolen car sex, bathroom stall sex. They’ve had it all, and more besides. But on this particular night, he slides in slow, face to face, breathing each other’s air, and it’s so intimate she feels she might cry. Their hands join on the pillow, and she can feel him deep, making her muscles ache in a way that all their frenzied quick-there’s-no-time encounters to this point have failed to do.

This is not to say he hasn’t made her come. Because he has. Each and every time. But this time the orgasm is deeper, an internal rather than external force, and when he pushes just a fraction more, she breaks with a moan.

It has never been like this.

Even before. Before William, before Oregon. Back when they were Mulder and Scully, partners in all senses of the word. She has never been made to feel this cherished. This adored.

This loved.

She hopes it’s like this from this point forward.

* * *

5 months in, they investigate a crime.

They don’t mean to, it’s just, old habits die hard, and there was an air of the paranormal about the whole thing. It’s different, without their badges, and she never really considered before now just how many doors were opened because of an old photo ID.

People are much less likely to help when there isn’t a badge of authority there to ease the way, something which she knew, of course, but only in the abstract sense.

Coming face to face with it in this new reality where they no longer refer to each other by any name is a shock.

They’re careful like that. As much as they check in under a new name in each new place they visit, they have to be careful. It wouldn’t do to call each other by an identity they have just given up, the new name still foreign on the tongue.

One night, huddled together in the small bed of a dingy motel room in a town she has already forgotten the name of, she whispers, “I know I don’t say it much, but I do love you, Mulder.”

He stiffens beside her when she says his name, and she worried for a moment she has just made the biggest mistake of her life. But then his arm tightens around her, and he pulls her closer to him. “Scully,” he whispers, soft and broken onto her nape. “ _Scully_.”

She shifts around in his embrace until they are facing each other, her arms coming up to hold his nape while her forehead rests against his.

“Do you regret it?”

“What?”

“Coming away with me.”

She shakes her head against his. “No. Never.” Eyes wide, she pulls back to meet his gaze. “Why? Do you regret me being here?”

He gives her a look.

She sighs. Shuffles down slightly in his arms so she can rest her head back in its familiar place on his sternum. “I made my choice, Mulder. 10 years ago, 5 years ago, 5 months ago. I made my choice. And I know what I chose.”

His arms close over her, pulling her closer, even as he asks, “What was that? A life of lies and deceit?”

“No. I chose you.” Pulling back just enough, she returns his look. “I will _always_ choose you.” She rests her head down. Kisses the point where she can feel his heart beat soundly in his chest. “So you better damn well get used to it.”

He smiles. Reaches down, tangles their fingers together. “I love you too.”

* * *

5 years in, they have a house.

They have a house, with a porch and land, and it reminds her of the farmhouse from a case years before, with Mulder standing on the boundary waxing lyrical to her about what he wants from a home. They have it, and they have it together.

15 years after she walked into his office, young and eager to please and with no idea what lay ahead, and they are still here. Still together. Homeowners, and she also has a job, using her own name no less, and there is a sense of normality about their day to day lives that she has ached for.

It may not be the life she envisioned, all those years ago when she first stepped into the doors of Quantico for her first day of training, but it is the life she chose.

She wouldn’t change a day. They are where they are because of the life they have lived, and the choices they have made. She wouldn’t want to risk the _them_ they are now by going back and changing fate.

Well.

Maybe that flukeman thing. She could have lived without that just fine.

* * *

5 decades in, they are still there.

* * *

 End

Thoughts? 


End file.
